• Greencrop. 55 days. AAS. Excellent flavor, tender, meaty. Flat pods to 8 inches long, but just ½ inch wide, half the width of most Roman types. Top yields. Use fresh or for canning and freezing. Good grower in home gardens.

• Provider. 52 days. CBM, PM. Excellent fresh and retains flavor after pickling. Medium-green, round, stringless pods to 6 inches long. Dependable, good choice for cool soil, early or late sowing; does well in heat and adverse weather. Adapted for many regions.

• Emerite. 55-70 days. Sweet, beany flavor. A true filet bean originally from Vilmorin, one of the oldest French seed houses. Straight slender green stringless pods: pick at 4 to 5 inches long for tender green beans; pick from 7 to 9 inches long for crisp, brittle pods. Good for freezing. Very productive vine grows to 8 feet tall.

• Scarlet Runner. 70 days for young pods, 115 days for shell beans. Sprays of scarlet flowers. Flattened, very dark green pods are edible and tasty when young; pods toughen as they reach full side. Shell older pods and cook beans like green limas. Vigorous vines. Attracts hummingbirds.

• Kwintus. 60-80 days. Flavorful and tender. Long, flat green pods up to 11 inches long. Vigorous vine to 8 feet tall. A favorite European climbing bean suited for greenhouse growing or outdoors. Bears early, both the first and last bean to be picked.

• Fordhook 242 Bush. 70-85 days. AAS. Nutty flavor. Short, fat-thick greenish-white pods 3½ to 4 inches long and 1 inch wide with 3 to 5 large seeds. Very productive; easy to shell. Grows good in north and near the ocean.

Planting. A plant bean in full sun after all danger of frost has passed in spring. Beans will not germinate in soil colder than 60°F. Sow successive crops every 2 to 3 weeks until 60 days before the first frost. Plant seeds in raised ridges to 6 inches high in spring; in summer, plant in furrows to ensure contact with soil moisture.

Roll bean seeds into a moist paper towel and place the end of the towel in a jar of water for several hours before sowing. This will soften the seed case and speed germination

Support pole beans. Pole beans require the support of poles, tepees, cages, or trellises. Set up supports when you sow seed. Air circulation is crucial to warding off disease.

Harvest. Pick beans at the right time: pick filet beans when they are pencil thick; pick snap beans when you feel seeds forming in pods–the bean should snap when bent in the middle; pick green shell beans when the pods are full size but have not begun to dry; pick dried beans when the pods are stiff and break with pressure.

Hi Folks;
I have been selectively improving a new variety of a natural (insect) open-pollinated cross, that has recently shown itself to be quite a remarkable bean. From it’s discovery in 1996 to the present, I have doubled the bean size, and more than quadrupled the quantity of beans per plant.
It is an improved cross between standard, bush habit Navy bean mothers, and Oregon Blue Lake (vine habit) fathers, that combined the best qualities of both, thanks to the bees.
In it’s immature phase, a plump, lush, long, tender, and sweet stringless green bean can be harvested throughout the season. The self-terminating characteristic of the Navy bean mothers allows them to be field dried. The bean itself is a long white bean that tastes and cooks like regular Navy beans.
The stringless nature of the OBL fathers allows the bean seed to dry into paper-thin, intact tan pods that do not split open to cast seed as many beans will do. Dried brittle, they can easily be shelled mechanically.
Through the years I have weeded out long vine characteristics, along with reinforcing a resistance to mold, fungus, and viral bean rot, to produce a robust, giant bush habit bean. Where other bush beans recommend 6 inch spacing, I recommend 16 inch spacing for these large, prolific producers.
My champion plant this year produced 60 pods with an average of 5 beans per pod (up to 8 beans in a single pod), close to 4 ounces of dried beans, averaging 0.376 grams per bean, or 76 beans per ounce, though some beans have achieved up to three quarters of a gram each.
The average is 2.7 ounces of dry beans per plant, most produce over 40 pregnant pods, and one plant gave me 78 pods (though not all were pregnant).
Please contact me at this email address if interested. Please put “Space Navy Beans” in the subject line. I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.
David E. Cowlishaw gitaway@monitorcoop.com
6617 S. Monte Cristo Rd.
Woodburn OR 97071
503 634 2444 & 2555

Space Navy Beans Two point OH!
My beany babies have reached the east coast, landing in West Virginia, and Florida!
I’ve made up a number of tripartate snack sized ziplock baggies, holding Alpha, Beta, and Cappa (sorry, no Greek spell chech) groups, the divided baggie holding 17 Top plant bean seeds (approximately 6 grams) of the top plant, all producing over 3 ounces of dry beans, 10 grams of Beta group (2.7 to 3 ounces of beans), and 20 grams of Cappa group (a slice of the middle of the bell curve, represented by 10 plants, producing between 2.5 to 2.7 ounces of beans per plant, selected by bean size (low bean count, high bean weight ratio).
Making them available to home gardeners for a “book report”, gathering testimonials, pictures, and personalities, almost free of charge (I’ll pay the postage), please write me, and get involved in the natural food movement, business plans (to include you) to follow.
This is a time and inventory limited offer, first come, first served. Ok, I still have “soup beans” available, but only for soup!
David E. Cowlishaw
6617 S. Monte Cristo Rd.
Woodburn OR 97071

Sow beans when the soil is at least 60F; the best growing temperature for beans is 70-80F. Beans want light, regular water from germination until flowering; once flowering occurs increase the water. Give beans low nitrogen fertilizers, moderate phosphorus and potassium–if you can work aged compost and animal fertilizers into the soil, that should be fertilizer enough. Mulch around beans to keep weeds down and conserve soil moisture. Avoid overhead irrigation and do not work or cultivate beans when they are wet, that can spread disease.

Yes, I agree with most of your advice, however, I have found that the beans are just fine with overhead sprinkling, unless the fruits are laying on the moist ground, then they tend to mold and rot.

Staked over-producers (like my “Space Navy Bean” or SNB), can successfully hold their seed until the drying season, and they can be harvested from the field cracklin’ dry! Stringless, they hold onto their seed, even when dried in the field. Sorry, been working on this variety since 1996, and will want to market it at some point in future history.
I expect a 5 ounce plant champion this year, 5 ounces of dried bean seed per plant! And then I will allow reproduction of the winners.

[…] All sorts of green beans, from snap beans (or string beans) to shell or whole beans are ideal for home gardens. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from, and snapping beans to harvest them is kind of entertaining. I’ve had better luck with the vine type compared to the self-support bush types of snap peas, but the bush types require less space. Both types grow easily from seeds. Most beans prefer full sun and well-drained soil. Harvest to Table has a list of the 25 best bean varieties to grow. […]

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Hi there and welcome!
My name is Steve Albert and I created Harvest to Table for the beginner and veteran gardner alike.

The goal here is to find easy solutions to common garden problems and to help you bring great food from your garden to your table. In addition to the tips and guidance I provide, if you have a gardening tip that you think will make a friend or neighbor a better gardener, please share it. Harvest to Table is about sharing!